The present invention is a cutting and stacking unit for cutting a sealed foil tube containing a series of product slices into separate, individual product slices or packages and stacking the slices vertically for subsequent packaging purposes.
A cutting and stacking unit of the type mentioned above is already known in that it features a foil tube in which individual product sections are divided by sealing seams and interlinked. The sealed foil tube is taken up on a distributor roller and aspirated by under-pressure. In other words, the foil tube is placed radially at the periphery of the distributor roller. A cutting device is then activated in the longitudinal direction to the distributor roller and separates successively the coherent packing units. After separation, the product packages are distributed over a total of three parallel tracks by means of a mechanical sliding unit which operates in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the distributor roller. The product slices arranged in tracks over the periphery are then dropped onto a lower guide way.
Accordingly, the described cutting and stacking unit has the disadvantage that the division into parallel guide ways requires substantial machinery when uniform, continuously sealed foil tube is involved. The cutting device arranged in the rotating distributor roller is relatively "involved" as well as the necessary sliding device which moves the individual cut product packages in different guide ways arranged parallel in reciprocal distance on the outer periphery of the distributor roller.
In addition, there is the disadvantage that when the product slices are dropped from the distributor roller onto the lower guide way, a uniform trajectory cannot always be ensured which may cause the product slices after dropping onto the lower guide way to tilt or slant thus making the subsequent stack formation for transport to the packing machine difficult.
Such a known distribution arrangement operates only with a maximum capacity of about 150 packages per track and per minute whereby there is also the danger that product packages may be damaged during their free fall when they are dropped.
In addition, the drop geometry of the packing units dropped off by the roller depend upon the speed of rotation of the roller. This means that at the start-up of the known cutting and stacking unit a drop geometry must be accepted which is different from that in effect when the operating speed is reached, which once gain makes the formation of stacks in the following packing machine difficult.